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Things that caught my attention

Thanks to everyone who has PM’d, emailed and called me with comments and questions. I appreciate everyone’s interest.

I will say… please remember that we have two businesses in town, an online business, a really gigantic web development project—for which we have to completely retrain several employees—plus two kids in two different basketball leagues that play in different towns at different times. Plus other, assorted, mission critical family activities. Oh. And we’re moving.

So, if there is a question you want answered or something you want FOIA’d, it would really help if you’d just post it here. This doesn’t mean I want you to stop contacting me privately. It just means that it will be easier for me to collect specific requests from fewer places--if you have a specific request. You should see my desk.

That said…

A few numbers on the year to date (January – October) budget to actual comparison caught my attention. I’ve marked them in yellow and written notes beside them on this PDF:

Rick mentioned in his footnote to the October income statement that part of this is BB King ticket money that will be due to the promoter. I have been advised that the amount due is $53,695, so that means $15,774 is presumably CAPC ticket revenue.

Money you’re holding for somebody else isn’t income. It’s a liability on the balance sheet (like a loan.) It will be fixed when the promoter is paid but, generally, you want to segregate funds you’re just holding for somebody else in order to get a more accurate picture of your finances.

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There are a few items that are 200-300% over budget. Only a couple of them are for a significant dollar amount. The first is:

5005-Website Maintenance – 261.4% over budget

This article explains:

Maloney said there has been progress switching from Rockfish to Epic Online for care and maintenance of the website. “Epic has been above and beyond whereas Rockfish was either too busy or uninterested. We were a small fish for them.” Maloney also reported the mobile website should be up within 30–60 days.

There are two big expenditures, one in June—presumably the cost of the provider change--and one in August—presumably the development cost of the mobile site--that more than make up for the overage. Assuming that the CAPC is able to maintain a good working relationship with its website developer, these should be costs that won’t repeat.

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5030- Folk Festival - $45,912.86

There is no budget item for this expenditure. This does not necessarily mean anything sinister. If you look at the month-by-month budget to actual reports, it looks like budget numbers are assigned to the months in which they’re likely to be paid. If that’s the case, the Folk Festival budget number will appear in November.

I have no idea what this represents. I assume the CAPC had the opportunity to court groups that weren’t contemplated in the original budget. Perhaps someone who knows could fill in the details.

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The bottom line shows a loss to date, 10/31, of $44,509.17—e.g. that’s how much money was spent over and above the amount of money that was collected between January 1 and October 31.

But, remember that $53,695 worth of BB King liabilities? That has to come back out. Which means that the actual loss to date is more like $98,000.

Don’t grab the pitchforks and fire up the torches yet. The income (tax collections) isn't even due for a few more weeks. This story will change considerably after everybody sends in their October taxes.

My questions so far:

How is the money that is given as event funding support accounted for? As I understand the rules, the CAPC only funds advertising and promotion for private events, so the associated costs must be in line items like, “Print Ads.”

But… is the cost/class system (In the Quickbooks software) being used? If it is, it would be possible to say, “I want to know all the costs associated with May Fest or Folk Fest or the Eurekan.” Then you push a button and… voila.

Whatever the answer is, I’ll be sending an FOIA for the list of funding requests that were awarded for 2013.

Next question: How are past due taxes accounted for? In a perfect world, past due taxes would be assigned to the period when they were due vs. the period when they were received. Hardcore beancounting wonk note: The reports say “Accrual Basis,” but that’s a Quickbooks oddity. This actually looks like cash basis, so accrued revenue and accrued costs wouldn’t apply. Somewhat in English…

When I paid two months worth of taxes, one late (Yes I did. See the customer detail for Eureka’s Nut House), was my $45 dollars due for May, paid in July, assigned to May or June? I’m not going to skew the numbers much but this question becomes significant when it’s time to decide whether collections are actually up, or whether past due deadbeats such as myself are just catching up.

I don’t know what to FOIA on that one. It’s a procedural question. I’ll ask.

In general, I’m belatedly realizing that I should have asked for a trial balance instead of just profit and loss—because the trial balance shows both income and balance sheet accounts on a single report (like… the profit and loss AND the bank account.) So I will FOIA the trial balance for 10/31/13 and 10/31/12 as a comparison.

I just had time to take a quick look. As a banker, I would be asking for the 3 previous years and the (posted) YTD. Once this is put into a spread sheet it might start making some sense,,,but ONLY if the books have been kept consistantly over those same years. Looking at 10 mo. of one year just doesn't tell anyone much, but I guess it's a place to start.
Just as important (to a banker) would be a pro-forma for next year and a 1, 3, & 5 year marketing plan.

****Even if the voices aren't real, they have some really good ideas! ****
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